It will be in Mass Effect 3 - ”functionally” has purpose, with feedback saying it was ”strangely addictive”. Didn’t expect fans to strip mine galaxy.
”The feedback we had prior to releasing the game was generally exactly that. It was like, ‘It’s strangely addictive. It’s kind of therapeutic’. But there were different personality types, too,” lead producer Hudson tells VideoGamer.com in an interview.
”And one of the personality types that we hadn’t encountered was there were a lot of people that when they know that they can go and get resources through something like that, they literally want to mine the entire galaxy that night.”
”And then, yeah, when you spend eight hours in a mini-game, it does become… there’s only so much too it. And we never expected that it’d be played that way.”
”We thought people would noodle in it a bit, get a few resources to get an upgrade, and then go back and do the rest of the game,” he continued.
They need the mining min-game for the next sequel - it servers a vital role in feeding the player resources which can then be spent on investing in new technology. Ship upgrades and better weaponry or armour relied on several types of mineral.
”Again, when you look at the feedback, there are things that people liked about it, and functionally it serves a purpose. I don’t think there’s a problem with any of those.”
”I think it’s the way people relied on it, and the way we relied on it maybe too much in parts of the story. And also just when you think about the speed of it,” noted Hudson.
So we can likely expect an improved mining scanner next time around, with the greater galaxy picked clean in the name of war against the Reapers. Mass Effect 3 won’t be unveiling to us for ”quite a few months” yet warns Hudson, but DLC will stream.
